Pirate MMO Atlas staying in port for another week

Runnin’ down to Cuba with a loooad of sugar! Weigh me boys to Cuba! Take a-- Whoa whoa, hold your throat flutes boys, there’s something on the horizon. Let me see. Yep. That’s a delay to windward. Looks like Atlas, the peg-legged MMO from the makers of Ark: Survival Evolved, has had its release date pushed back. It was supposed to come out tomorrow but it looks like she’s in irons for another week. Let me read the flags to see why. Hmmm. Looks like they're saying: “to give the team more time to run through this massive game's extensive content”. Well, that's it. Stow your bellyaching, you squeezers. You’ll just have to wait until Wednesday December 19 to dance some hearty jigs, play some hearty rigs, down among the pigs with the water round you bubbling, one-two-three-four-five!

The open world survival MMO was announced during the marketing bonanza of The Game Awards. It involves getting into fistfights, slaying monsters, finding treasure, sailing the ocean with pals, ship-to-ship combat, and managing crewmates well enough so they don’t mutiny. You’ll be able to build your own galleons, claim territory and form companies. Here’s a bit about crafting your own ships.

“Build drydocks and start with a dinghy rowboat, basic raft, tiny sloop or nimble schooner, moving on up to your own versatile brigantine or titanic galleon capable of transporting hundreds of crew and extensive cargo. Name your ship in big bold letters, paint and copy your own pirate flag and custom-place all the pieces of your ship -- which sails and where, planks and gunports, every single structure piece has a physical Weight and Material -- to function exactly how you want.”

It looks a bit like Sea Of Thieves by Rare but with maybe a bit more to swing your cutlass at. We'll have to wait to find out. The creators are also boasting about being able to host 40,000 players on a map at any one time. Although obviously not all in the same place. We’ve asked Matt to be a stowaway among the developers and he reportedly has some info on how said overseers will stop thousands of players from all gathering on the same isolated rock to break the game. It's a windy solution, I'll say that. So look out for that interview.

As for whether these pirate-based shenanigans be funner times than Rare’s salty jaunt, we’ll sea.